The Channel

In New Orleans, two brothers and their military brothers form a bank robbery crew. They use their military skills to the fullest, but they are surprised by the unexpected arrival of a SWAT team. The FBI is leading the charge as the city is on high alert for the surviving crew members. Ava is their inside woman at the bank. They are lifelong companions from the Irish Channel neighborhood of New Orleans.

There are some good action sequences. The opening bank robbery is good. There is a great section where they are captured by a black crime lord. The rest is a bit of a struggle. The robbery crew does a passable job at being hard. The opening joke reminds me of the inappropriate humor from Predator. The action reminds me of the kinetic energy of Heat. It's obvious that this film is pulling inspiration from some of the best action thrillers around. Problem is that it's beyond their abilities. I would really cut back on the cops in this cops and robbers drama. The actors and filmmaker do struggle at times outside of the bloody gun violence.

A fun, shoestring-budget type, heist movie that borrows heavily from superior films in the genre. Namely and obviously the 199x movie "Heat". It's almost like the writers of this movie just finished Breaking Bad and then watched Heat directly preceding receiving the inspiration for writing this film. All that said, you could do worse than Breaking Bad and Heat for touchstones imo. The acting is not great (especially from the dude who played the good bro and the dude who played Pacino's cop character) and some of the lines are just awful but I found it enjoyable. Lots of gunfights and sincere but laughably terrible attempts at N'Orlins accents. I have definitely seen worse.

I like heist movies like Den of Thieves, so I turned this one on. The movie's main characteristic is the absence of anything groundbreaking, fresh, and original. The movie seemingly borrows from an assortment of heist movies, including Den of Thieves. The result is that the movie is predictable and forgettable. The ending is a bit of a mixed bag, relying on some mildly incredulous actions by the police

Nonetheless, I still found the movie to be a very easy and fun watch. The action scenes are intense; the police investigation is delivered intelligently for most of the movie (outside of the ending). The character Mick is awesome and definitely overshadows his nicer brother. The pacing is smooth.

Again - the movie won't stay with you, and there isn't much you haven't seen. But if you like heist movies, crime movies, cop movies, and action movies - you'll have no trouble sitting through this one

7.5/10.

The Channel is a low budget film, but one done with style and skill. It's clearly influenced by crime films like Heat and 21 Bridges (the main cop even looks like Chadwick Boseman!), but the plot manages to go to places that those films did not. The result is a movie that feels fresh and thrilling despite wearing its influences on its sleeve.

The film's secret weapon is definitely director William Kaufman, who has made a career of turning out big action on tiny budgets. His signature is creating visceral, realistic-ish gunfights and he doesn't disappoint here. Shootouts that would last 30 seconds in other movies instead go on for 3-5 minutes here and escalate in a pleasing fashion. I wouldn't say The Channel has the best shootouts he's ever made (see The Brave or Daylight's End for that), but this is certainly the best film he's made. It holds up even during the non-action scenes and I found myself invested in the predicament of the main characters.

If you can accept action movies without big studio production values, then The Channel is a good time at the movies.

An action movie , almost the same as "Town " 2010 starring Ben Affleck but not as high class as Town. Actors talk the same as street thugs to show that they are tough . Almost the whole movie has low class action scenes constantly , Robbers come with assault rifles and one of hero police comes with shotgun !!! To fight them . The Director/writer is William Kaufman , the director/writer of Sinners and Saints (2010) which was wonderful movie , I also have watched Hit List by William Kaufman which also was wonderful movie. On the whole the movie theme is action "Town 2010" type movie but as I said not as high class as Town 2010.